The Hill - BLACKBIRD book 5

8. the family

Brock was entranced at coming to his office in the morning and find a neat folder with two dozen prints, most of them from social networks. He flicked through them, then decided to fix himself a tea, to properly sit and see what Tanya had found.

On his way to the staff kitchen, he had a glimpse of Gillian in the tech section, right next door. Her voice reached him while he took three times longer than necessary to make a simple tea.

He couldn't understand a single word she said, until she suddenly raised her voice. And she sounded pissed enough to haunt the techs' dreams for weeks.

"Then google it! I don't care! But none of you is leaving this office, save to deliver those results! And you better do it by noon tops! Else, I'll have you all moved to the fifth floor, with your backs to Cooper's office, so we can see what's on your screens at all times!"

Well, she knew what strings to pull, he had to give her that. He guessed she was done and came out of the staff kitchen. Right in time for Gillian to stumble on him. He didn't expect her stormy exit, but managed to move his mug away and prevent disaster.

"Sir! I'm so sorry," she mumbled, looking down.

He was somehow grateful she avoided eye contact, in case his face gave him away. He was also grateful his voice didn't sound merry but flat, as it should. "Never mind. Tell me, Gillian, can I borrow Lawrence for a couple of days? She's been—"

"Of course, sir. Now if you'll excuse me..."

He swallowed a sigh when she cut him off and hurried away. Yes, Brockner, it's gonna take her some time to forgive you.

Russell came out of the elevator then, smiling as usual, so they headed together to their office. They decided to work at Russell's side, pulled out a board, fetched some markers, and tried to figure out what Tanya's stick notes and red circles on the pictures meant.

Five minutes later, Russell called the girl on speaker. "Morning, T! Hey, we've got your captions here, and we can't quite get who this bunch of skinheads are."

"Wait a minute."

He frowned at his phone when she just disconnected. But before he could even say a world, Tanya knocked on his door, her computer tight in her arms like a teddy bear.

She came in and they gave her room to approach the desk. She rested her computer there and took one of the pictures.

"This is from Christophe Balken's Facebook bio," she said, giving the picture to Brock, and started at her usual quick speech. "On your Facebook bio, you can show if other users are your relatives. See, sir?" She pointed at the red circle on the left, drawn around some tiny words.

Brock put on his readers and read aloud. "General W. Kreuz, brother." He nodded, handing the picture to Russell.

Tanya went on as she looked for another picture. "So I checked this General Kreuz." She showed it to Brock.

"The other ex-Marine."

"And, together, their fake last names form Balkenkreuz," said Russell, pinning Balken's picture to the board.

"Now to tag another user as your relative, the other user has to accept the tag," said Tanya. "Balken's only alleged relative is his brother in arms, Kreuz. But Kreuz has also a cousin."

"Captain V. Gold," read Brock.

Tanya gave him a new picture, while Russell pinned Kreuz' by Balken's.

Brock looked at the left column. "This Captain Gold has a brother, one Captain R. Gold. But this other Gold is not among Kreuz' relatives."

Tanya gave him the next picture.

Brock scowled. "And this R. Gold has his brother V. Gold and a cousin his brother doesn't have..."

He gave the picture to Russell, who scoffed at reading the name. "Lieutenant A. Silver? Really?"

"Aren't they naïve?" said Tanya, looking for more pictures. "Again, this A. Silver has two brothers. None of them are cousins with Captain Gold, but one is cousins with..."

"Let me guess," said Russell. "A sergeant with a metal name."

Tanya giggled. "Sergeant F. Copper."

"C'mon, T. You gotta be kidding."

Brock shook his head slowly, his scowl deepening. "Four Sergeants Copper total. But no new relatives..."

"I'm afraid that's where the cheesy family tree ends, sir."

Russell finished pinning and labeling the pictures on the board and stepped back. His face darkened like Brock's at the diagram.

"All the sergeants answer to the same lieutenant," said Brock. "Another lieutenant answers for all of them to a captain. And the other captain answers to one of the generals."

Russell counted aloud. "Two generals, two captains, three lieutenants, four sergeants... That alone is a lot of crazy weirdos put together."

"Eleven ranked officers. At least four to six corporals. And two to six soldiers per corporal... It means forty to fifty people. And we can consider them all armed and dangerous."

"If we locate their base, we're gonna need to make it at least three to one."

"Four to one would be safer."

Brock noticed Tanya waited to show him another picture. It was Balken in the woods, showing off a big rifle, a dead bear at his feet. "This was posted on June 27th," the girl said. "I cannot locate where it was taken. But the rifle model matches those you seized from the smugglers."

"It's not an ordinary rifle, but it's available at some stores," said Russell.

"Don't forget the deep web," said Tanya.

"And regular online stores," said Brock. "What are you working on right now, Lawrence?"

"I'm running facial recognition on VICAP for all the Nazi fam—sorry, the subjects."

"On all of the them at the same time?"

"Kurt's day off, so I have two extra computers to work on. And after VICAP, I thought maybe I could run another facial against driving licenses nationwide."

"Good call. Start with Maine databases."

"Yessir!"

Russell noticed Brock's mild smile when Tanya hurried out. He didn't see that coming, but those two seemed to enjoy working together. Well, takes one workaholic...